Our antiquity - TROYA (Chapter 1. "The path of the bull")

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There is one Gordian knot in the history of ancient times. From him twist the strings of narratives about most of the countries and rulers of Western Europe. This cornerstone of the history of European civilization is called Troy.

Let's try to use the opportunity that the griffin from the flag of the Tatar Caesar gave us in the article "Forgotten symbol of a great country" and try to find the deeply hidden past of our Fatherland. And if the notorious antiquity is just an idle invention of the "Renaissance", then we should write our most ancient history anyway, because other countries will never abandon their Old Testament times for anything. But we will not reveal our ancient past anyhow. We will take canonical sources, and we will invite stubborn logic to our allies.

In the obverse annalistic collection of Ivan the Terrible (16th century), before the exposition of all known chronicle events to all of us, first, in particular, the history of the Trojan War is given. It is interesting that the basis for the presentation of the Trojan history in the Codex is not the Iliad, but Dareth of Phrygia, whose work is currently considered an apocryphal. It is possible that the compilers of the Observatory traced the history of Rus to the events of the Trojan War.

So Troy. Many have already approached this stronghold, some more successfully, some less. Tons of paper, parchment and papyrus are written in full, even something has been excavated in Asia Minor, but the mystery of Ilion still excites the minds and does not lose its relevance. It is difficult to step on the ground already trampled by crowds of previous researchers and authors of sometimes conflicting hypotheses. But still, let's try to get back to this difficult question. True, the conversation will have to start from afar.

Surely many have already paid attention to the huge number of ethnic groups "antique" authors settled in the Black Sea region and its surrounding areas - you can break your head. Until now, disputes about who is who do not subside.

The 19th century historian Yegor Klassen aptly noted: “The Greeks and Romans gave many Slavic tribes their arbitrary nicknames, referring them either to the locality, or to their appearance, or to the severity in wars, or to the way of life … From this, more than fifty unnecessary names that do not mean anything special, which must be destroyed in advance if we want to somehow clarify this chaos …”I think this statement is also true for many other peoples.

Where to stop, who to remove, and who to leave? In the "ancient" books, we will definitely not find the answer, since there are more contradictions in the names of peoples than there is useful information. Therefore, let's act simply and leave only one name for our ancestors, the most capacious. The Scythians lasted the longest in the annals and on maps and are, in my opinion, the most capacious concept. The 20th century historian G. V. Vernadsky in his work "Ancient Rus" says: "The racial origin of the Scythians belongs to the discussed issues. Opposite opinions were expressed on this issue by various scientists. Some, like Newman, considered the Scythians to be Mongols; others, like Melenhof, Tomashek, Rostovtsev, developed a theory of the Iranian origin of the Scythians; at the same time, a number of Russian researchers - Grigoriev, Zabelin, Ilovaisky - suggest that they must have been of Slavic origin. Each of these theories must have at least a grain of truth in it, since it seems likely that in many cases the name "Scythians" meant tribes of different ethnic origins."

That is, the Scythians, figuratively speaking, can be regarded as an ancient analogue of the concept of "Soviet people". They included both sedentary and nomadic tribes, as reported by Herodotus (5th century BC) and other "antique" historians. The description of the history of the Scythians refers us to very deep antiquity. In the epitome of Justin (III century) of the works of Pompey Trog (I century) "Historiarum Philippicarum", according to chronological indications, it is not difficult to calculate that the Scythians won a victory in the war with the Egyptians in about 3700 BC. Despite the fact that such antiquity is rejected by canonical history, the discovery of Arkaim (the turn of the III-II millennium BC), I think, gives us reason to pay close attention to the testimony of Justin. It also says that after the victory of the Scythians over the Egyptians, Asia was subordinated to the Scythians, which paid tribute to the Scythians for one and a half thousand years.

Due to the inconsistency of Justin's information with the Old Testament history and, in particular, the dating of the biblical flood, Orosius (V century), taking his materials as a basis, somewhat altered the events of the Scythian past and slightly lowered their antiquity. However, even here the victory of the Scythians over Egypt dates back to the middle of the 4th millennium BC. The 6th century Gothic historian Jordan reports on the same battles with the Egyptians, but refers them to the period shortly before the Trojan War. He calls the Scythian king Tanay the Gothic king Tanausis. Humanly, you can understand him.

Diodorus (1st century BC) also speaks of the wars between the Scythians and the Egyptians: “After a while, the descendants of these kings, distinguished by courage and strategic talents, subjugated a vast country beyond the Tanais River to Thrace and, directing military operations in the other direction, extended their dominion to the Egyptian river Nile. " The chronicle "The Legend of Slovenia and Ruse", dating back to the 17th century, gives a legend about these princes, the descendants of the legendary prince Skif, calling them the founders of the Rus. The chronicle also mentions a trip to Egypt. It turns out that in the 17th century the history of Rus was considered in the context of Scythian history. The time of the life of Sloven and Rus, and their departure from the Northern Black Sea region to the north-west of present-day Russia, the chronicle dates back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, which also echoes the dating of Arkaim.

The tendentious approach to underestimating the antiquity of the Scythians and attributing them to "disappeared" peoples probably goes back to the medieval tradition. Apparently, a number of testimonies about the Scythians did not fit into the biblical plot, from which they started when composing the chronology that still exists today. I think that the authors of the now-rooted interpretation of historical events were not least driven by the desire to tear away from their roots and thereby split the strongest (and one of the oldest) Scythian community of peoples.

The disorder in the "ancient" names of the Scythian tribes (either accidental, or deliberately modeled) made it possible to talk about global migrations of peoples. With the recognition of antiquity and autochthonousness, a few units of the peoples of the Scythian community, for example, the Armenians, were lucky, and I am sincerely happy for them.

But most of the Scythians, who to this day living together in their ancestral lands, found themselves without historical roots against the background of artificial overestimation of the antiquity of a number of other peoples. This laid a solid foundation for sustained interethnic tensions and incessant senseless disputes over who is the "invader" and who is autochthonous. But the "antique" historians could not decide who was older, the Egyptians or the Scythians, and some (for example, Pompey Trog) considered the Scythians to be the most ancient people.

The medieval Petavius (1583-1652), the one who participated in the composition of the existing chronology (thanks to Ilya Shapiro for the hint, the material is taken from here), did not lag behind the ancients. Here is what Petavius writes: “The Scythians were a valiant, populous and ancient people, never submitting to anyone, but rarely attacking themselves in order to subdue someone. Once there was a long dispute about who is more ancient: the Egyptians or the Scythians, which ended with the fact that the Scythians were recognized as the most ancient people. And for their large numbers they were called the mother of all migrations of peoples. The philosopher Anacharsis was born in this country, which stretches to the north of the Danube. This area is called Sarmatia or the Scythians of Europe."

It seems to me that the ethnic composition of the Scythians, i.e. peoples living approximately within the borders of Great Scythia, the Empire of Tartaria, the former USSR, if it has changed since ancient times, it is most likely not drastically. For some reason, the canonical history ignores the fact that even during conquest, the change of citizenship does not entail a change in the ethnicity of the population. And from "ancient" and medieval sources it is clear that in Sikthia, and then for a long time in Tartary, the entrance for the then exporters of "universal values" was by and large closed.

The current hypotheses about the notorious "great" migrations with fabulous appearances from nowhere of peoples and their disappearances into nowhere, in my opinion, do not look justified. A number of researchers (E. Gabovich, N. Bloch, D. Antich and others) speak of the impossibility of the "great migration of peoples" of the 4th-7th centuries in the form in which it is depicted. They may reproach me that this is not academic research, but academicians B. D. Grekov and B. A. Fishermen defended autochthonousness in ethnogenesis, for example, the Slavs. And here is what the 19th century historian A. Veltman says about the notorious “Mongols-Huns”, who are portrayed as the culprits of the so-called “great migration of peoples”: “The Huns did not need to come from Asia; they have existed in Europe for a long time, lived at the Dnieper …”He identifies the Huns with the Dnieper Rus. Here is a miniature from 1360 illustrating the attack of the Huns. Is it not our griffin there on the shield of one of the Huns' warriors? Black, on a yellow background, a wing peeps out from behind the blade of a neighboring fighter.

Now compare the beast on the Hunnic shield with the Tartar griffin from the 1787 collection of flags published in Paris.

But a black griffin on a golden field, in ancient times, is the coat of arms of Panticapaeum, the capital of the Bosporus kingdom, and in the Middle Ages, the Perekop kingdom (Little Tartary). According to canonical dating from the 7th century BC, the image of a griffin was widely used by the Scythians; it is also one of the symbols of power in pre-Roman Russia (we analyzed griffins in detail in our previous study). What have some incomprehensible "Mongols-Sünnu" here, I don’t know.

Concerning the Huns, Veltman also cites the point of view of another historian G. Venelin: “… he attributes the name of the Huns to the Bulgars proper. This opinion of G. Venelin is based on Iornand (Jordan - mine), who brings the Huns out of the Bulgarorum sedes, and on the Byzantine writers, who until the 10th century were indifferent to the Danube barbarians, now the Scythians, now the Sarmatians, now the Huns, now Bulgars, then Russ … "And the historian G. V. Vernadsky believes that the name "Huns" was attributed not to one people, but to several at once, which actually equates them with the concept we use, the Scythians. On occasion, it will be possible to make out in more detail the connection between the Scythians, Tartars and modernity. But now, when I mention the Scythians, I proceed from the fact that we are talking about all of us, more precisely about our ancestors. The thesis about the multiethnic composition of the Scythians probably should not raise questions, many evidence speaks in favor of this. It can be assumed that the Slavs, in particular the Rus (I use these terms deliberately), could, as now, make up the majority among the Scythians. Although a number of medieval Arab historians, for example, Muhammad ibn Ahmed ibn Iyas al-Hanafi (early 16th century), classify the Rus as a Turk.

At the same time, this issue is not of decisive importance for the present study. It is at least unreasonable for the most ancient peoples with a common history of almost six thousand years to argue among themselves who at what stage was more and who was a hundred or two years older. This is forgivable to the younger peoples. And not very old events clearly show that great victories are achieved together.

In order to summarize the thoughts about the Scythians, one must remember that the legendary ancestor of the Trojans Dardanus Diodorus called the Scythian king. I think this gives us reason to say that the concepts of Trojans and Scythians are comparable. The presence of a description of the Trojan War in the Personal Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible most likely suggests that before Schlözer, Miller and Bayer took up the history of Russia in the 18th century, our ancestors reasoned about the same. Therefore, the history of Troy, we have the right to refer to the Scythian history, i.e. to the past of our Motherland.

Let's now return to the names given to various tribes by the "antique" authors. Their names are similar to each other as twin brothers, for example: Thracians and Phrygians, Goths and Getae, Sarmatians and Savromats, Lycians and Cilicians, Dandars and Dardans, Taurus and Tevkras, Cimbri (Cimmers) and Cimmerians, Achaeans (in Greece) and Achaeans (in the North Caucasus). Of course, we will not list all the coincidences. Approximately the same authors of "antique" works dispensed with the names of rivers, cities, territories. On the historical maps of the 16th-18th centuries, compiled on the basis of the very "primary sources", there are a lot of geographical names duplicating each other in rather distant places. Troy is found not only in the place traditionally assigned to it by canon historians, but also in Greece and Italy. Maybe in this way the authors of the map want to say that this is the "new Troy", founded by Trojan migrants? But in the sources for such new settlements, I have not come across the names "Troy".

And the most famous Trojan migrant, Aeneas, was left without Troy. Not far from the Tiber, it is true, there is Truya, but whether it has anything to do with Aeneas. It was also interesting to see that the Etruscans are people. And he had fun when he also found the names "wolves" and "officers" not far from each other.

There are many Naples (Novgorods), Caesarea (royal residences) and Sevastopol (holy cities), although this is also more or less explicable. However, there are two Iberias (in Spain and Iberia in Georgia), two rivers Gipanis (Southern Bug and Kuban) and several Mizias (in Turkey, Bulgaria and on the western coast of the Caspian Sea).

We see two Hellespont (one of the ancient names of the Dnieper and the former name of the Dardanelles Strait).

There are two cities of Acre in the Azov region and one near the Asia Minor Bosphorus. Even the "Run of Achilles" area is bifurcated.

We will talk about the two Bospores separately, and the reflection of geographical names in two places may indicate a shift of some important object from one locality to another. They will object to me that colonies were created and they were given their native names, as they were given much later, for example, in America. May be so. Although a number of names do not seem to me to be interrelated, and the duplication around the Bosporus is too deliberate. Also, this does not explain the similar sound of the names of many peoples. By the way, colonies may well be not our ancient cities of the Northern Black Sea region, but those that, according to the canonical version, are considered to be the main ones, and especially such a fate threatens the Mediterranean cities. Don't believe me? Yes, according to the canonical version, the Black Sea, especially its northern coast, belongs to the distant periphery, but look at the maps of the Black Sea of the 16th-17th centuries. You will see that on them the Black Sea is called not only the Euxine Pontus, but also Mare Maggiore or Maior.

Those who know the languages have already translated what this means the main or main sea. They are trying to convince us that the Italians mistakenly substituted their “maggiore” (main) instead of the Greek “mauros” (μαύρος - black) by consonance. It is difficult for me to judge the education of Italians in those distant times, when the grass was much greener, the water was incomparably wetter, and Greece and Italy were nothing but islands and, apparently, the ocean was no less than the Pacific Ocean. However, the concept of "main sea" is used by very enlightened people, such as Marco Polo (the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries), as well as the Fleming Guillaume Rubruck (XIII century) in his book "Journey to the Eastern Countries". And the Venetian Josaphat Barbaro (15th century) in his "Journey to Tanu" calls the Black Sea Majus, i.e. Great.

Now let's deal with the Cimmerian Bosporus (Kerch Strait) and the Thracian Bosporus, which now belongs to Turkey. Bosporus is translated as a bull ford or "the way of the bull." Appian (1st century) in the Mithridates wars writes that the Cimmerian Bosporus owes its name to the legend, according to which Io, turned into a cow after contact with Zeus, had to swim across the strait, fleeing Hera's jealousy. But there are two Bosporus, and according to legend, Io eventually made it to Egypt. If Appian meant modern Egypt, then Io could get there by swimming from the Cimmerian Bosporus only through the Thracian Bosporus.

Another character of ancient history is associated with the "path of the bull" - Alexander the Great with his Bucephalus (bull-head), whose companion Antyuriy sailed to the shores of the Baltic, placing on the ship images of the head of Bucephalus (apparently a bull) and a griffin, where he became the legendary ancestor of noble obodritic families … We see both of these images on the coat of arms of Mecklenburg.

The myth of Europe, which Zeus, having turned into a bull, took to the island of Crete, is also suitable. If Zeus abducted Europe from somewhere from Heraclium Cimmerian or from Tanais (Azov), then Zeus the bull had to swim through both Bospores. But it was along this line, according to the ideas of the ancients, that the border between Europe and Asia passed.

It can be assumed that the "path of the bull" could be called not the passage from one side of each strait to the other, but the sea route between the Cimmerian Bosporus and the Thracian Bosporus. Could the "path of the bull" somehow give the Black Sea the status of the main (main) sea, thanks to which it entered the legends? In the Azov Sea in the Middle Ages, two large trade routes converged: the "Great Silk Road" and the road "from the Varangians to the Greeks." But after all, "from the Varangians to the Greeks" they went across the Dnieper, you say, and you will be right, but only in part.

It was possible to go down the Dnieper, but it was difficult to go up because of the rapids, and maybe not advisable.

The 19th century historian D. Ilovaisky wrote the following in this regard: “It is absolutely incredible for the Russians to drag their boats on dry land past all the rapids, that is, at a distance of 70 or 80 versts”.

In order to rise up from the Black Sea, including after military campaigns, the route through the Krechensky Strait along the Sea of Azov was used, then: - Mius (or Kalmius), Volchya, Samara, Dnieper; - either Don, Seversky Donets, Berestovaya, Orel, Dnipro. This is how it was possible to get into the Dnieper already above the rapids, as Ilovaisky says.

And if we also remember about the dragging from the Don to the Volga and the “Great Silk Road”, then we can understand that the owner of control over the Sea of Azov received the keys to a kind of Klondike in his hands. Therefore, the main reason for all the wars over the Crimea and the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus was the desire to control this very serious trading hub.

From the above, we can conclude that control over the Kerch Strait (Cimmerian Bosporus) and the mouth of the Don was no less significant than control over the Thracian Bosporus and the Dardanelles. And the existence in the Northern Black Sea region according to the canonical dating from the 7th century BC. ancient cities (Panticapaeum, Phanagoria, Tanais, etc.) emphasizes that the Cimmerian Bosporus had such an importance since ancient times. I think that the "path of the bull", i.e. the route between the two Bospores, could enter the legends precisely because of its practical importance. And the combination of this trade route with a large number of major historical events that took place in the vicinity of the Black Sea since ancient times (remember, for example, the campaign of Darius in Scythia or the Mithridatic wars), speaks of the correctness of the names Mare Maggiore (Main Sea) and Mare Majus (Great Sea).

Now it will not be superfluous to remember once again that one of the ancient names of the Crimea was Tavrida (Tavrika, Tavria). In encyclopedias we are assured that this name comes from the ancient people of the Taurus. Academics know it better, of course, but in Indo-European languages the word with the corresponding root is found everywhere (Greek ταύρος, lat. Taurus, lit. taūras, Slav. Tur). By the way, Apollodorus (II century BC) writes that according to the instructions of the oracle, the legendary Ilu was given a cow. He let her in and where the cow lay down, Il founded Ilion. It is interesting that open sources report a similar sign among the Russians when choosing a place to build a house, although this sign may well be international. But the Scythians were no stranger to the image of a bull.

And, for example, in Phanagoria, Theodosia and Panticapaeum, the bull was minted on coins.

In South Slavic cosmology, a bull (sometimes a buffalo or an ox) is the support of the earth. In the Word about Igor's regiment, we meet the epithet "buy-tour" in relation to, for example, Prince Vsevolod Svyatoslavovich. Yes, and in the beliefs of the Russians, the image of a bull is also present.

The connection with ancient legends about bulls, as well as the presence of both Taurida and the Bosporus in one place, gives us grounds to assume that the starting point of the “bull's way” could have been the Northern Black Sea region, and not the Cimmerian Strait of the same name with the Bosporus. This version is indirectly confirmed by the words of Herodotus, who called Meotida (Sea of Azov) "Mother of [Euksin's] Pontus." Now it becomes clear why the diplomat, traveler and religious figure John de Galonifontibus (turn of the XIV and XV centuries) in the "Book of Knowledge of the World" called the Black Sea not only the Great, but also the Tanay Sea, i.e. By the Don Sea! The attribution of the Scythians by a number of sources to ancient times, the mention of the legendary Hyperborea to the north of the Scythians, as well as the discovery of Arkaim, speak in favor of the fact that a developed civilization was present from the north of the Black Sea since ancient times.

All of the above gives grounds to deeply question the thesis of the Black Sea and its northern coast as the outskirts of the Oycumene. Also, in my opinion, in the light of this fact, one can make the assumption that the Mediterranean Sea was not the "center of the universe" for which it is now being issued. The preliminary results of our research, especially the mirror image of toponyms around the two Bospores and the deliberate similarity in the names of peoples, may also indicate that the canonical version of the location of Troy is highly doubtful. Enough has already been written about Schliemann's adventurism and his "McKenna gold" so as not to waste time on his person. Let's take a look at the historical map of the Black Sea, compiled in the 17th century on the basis of "antique" sources. It just breathes with antiquity. The names of cities and rivers go back to ancient myths and legends, including the Trojan War.

I hope that most readers will not have any questions now when we will start looking for the legendary Troy on the shores of the Great Don Sea, which in the old days was also called the Russian Sea.

Read more: Chapter 2. On the shores of the Don Sea